Mathematics tuition teacher gets jail, caning for molesting 15-year-old student

SINGAPORE: A mathematics tuition teacher who molested a 15-year-old student in his class at least five times was sentenced on Tuesday (Jul 9) to two years and one month's jail and six strokes of the cane.

The 48-year-old Indonesian man, who is also a Singapore permanent resident, cannot be named due to a gag order.

In the last hearing, the judge had ordered a victim impact statement to be taken.

The teenager said in her statement that she began self-harming and had suffered a loss of self-esteem. During the time of the molestation, which was between February and March last year, she felt scared whenever she heard the word "tuition". 

Her studies were also affected, according to the statement tendered by the prosecution.

The tutor, who is divorced, pleaded guilty last month to three charges of using criminal force with intent to outrage the girl's modesty, with another two charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

He molested the girl after group classes for secondary school students which were conducted at his home.

He would ask the girl, who was in Secondary 3 at the time, to stay back after class on the pretext of asking her to complete her homework.

When he was alone with her, he slid his hand under her clothes and molested her. On one occasion, he also lifted her shirt and looked at her.

The girl kept the incidents to herself at first as she was afraid to speak up, but she later confided in a male friend, who told the school about the matter. The victim's mother took her to a police station to lodge a report.

District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim told the tutor on Tuesday that the breach of trust in this case was "rather egregious", and the victim impact statement "speaks for itself".

For each charge of using criminal force on the teenager to outrage her modesty, the man could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned, or given any combination of these punishments.